SportsTurf

SportsTurf March 2011

SportsTurf provides current, practical and technical content on issues relevant to sports turf managers, including facilities managers. Most readers are athletic field managers from the professional level through parks and recreation, universities.

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Facility&Operations
SHAWN MAHONSKI, sports turf technician, Towson University Towson competes at the Division I
level in men’s lacrosse. They compete at home on a FieldTurf surface installed a few years ago. On synthetic surfaces, I always stress to those installing a new field that they inlay all the lines. On a grass surface though, everything should be measured from the center of the field. After the out- line, we’ll first paint all the lines that cross the field sideline to sideline, and then add the wing area lines and creases. It’s impor- tant not to forget the face-off square at center field. We paint a 4x4-inch square in a contrasting color for this. Our team does practice on grass in the fall. Also, we have huge lacrosse camps in June. There are not many options for keeping grass in wear areas, usually inside
the crease and at face-off. We try moving the field side to side, much like many do for soccer. We’ll seed with perennial rye- grass seed all through the fall to try to get something to grow. In the end, we re-sod those areas almost every year.
JESSE PRITCHARD, CSFM, sports turf manager, University of Virginia Our men’s lacrosse team plays in Klock-
ner Stadium, a sand-based, Patriot bermudagrass field that is heavily over- seeded with perennial ryegrass in the fall. Klockner is home to the University of Vir- ginia men’s and women’s soccer programs in the fall and our men’s and women’s lacrosse teams in the spring. Men’s lacrosse can bring in up to 8,000 fans per game. Laying out a youth men’s lacrosse field
is actually quite easy. With three people the field can be measured, strung and painted in less than an hour. Laying out a women’s lacrosse field is a completely dif- ferent matter and quite difficult without any previous experience (see June 2009 SportsTurf for laying out women’s lacrosse fields.) There is a reason there are only 10 Di- vision I men’s lacrosse programs that com- pete on natural grass fields: keeping grass growing on a lacrosse field in the Mid-At- lantic region in January, February, and March is nearly impossible. We treat three areas on a men’s lacrosse field differently than that of a soccer or football field. The team bench areas and attack areas are nee- dle-tined after every game and seeded with additional perennial ryegrass starting March 1. The area inside the crease will
Courtesy of Pioneer Athletics
40 SportsTurf | March 2011
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